One of the most common questions people ask me is: if you love literature so much, why didn’t you major in English? Sometimes I ask myself the same question. Recently, I realized the answer: I’m a closet hopeless romantic and I tend to seek out mushy, tear-jerking love stories in even the most unlikely novels. I shouldn’t think this would go over too well in a room full of literary, “intellectual” types.
Here, I’ve provided an example of a classic novel I’ve read in the past along with commentary of what I was really thinking during the reading, but never dared speak or write my ideas for fear my English teacher would flunk me for being an airhead. Instead, I parroted some dark and twisty thoughts about how this book reveals the nature of cruelty, suffering, guilt, alienation, and other such crapola as would earn me an A and help me graduate. Secretly, I thought this book had untapped love story potential.